From Vietnam Refugee to International Entrepreneur

Vu Lam left his home in Vietnam at age 11. Traveling without his family, he boarded a fishing boat of refugees and arrived in the United States with only a pair of shorts and a shirt. Today, he has a graduate degree in electrical engineering and leads an international software development firm that introduced IT outsourcing to the land he left behind.

For many years, Lam (MSEE ’90) avoided the media. He’s a private person, he says, and didn’t want to talk. But more recently, he’s changed his mind. “Having a story like mine may make other people push to do something on their own as well,” he says. “I encourage everyone to take a leap.”

Written by Linda Thomas Terhune. Click below to download the full story, published in Purdue University’s engineering magazine, IMPACT.